


The Necessary Thing

by chshrkitten



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Fix-It, Gen, Red Hawke, Templar Carver Hawke, shitty letter writer marian hawke, youre seeing a pattern here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 01:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16822180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chshrkitten/pseuds/chshrkitten
Summary: Carver and Marian Hawke have never been the best at handling serious conversations, but they still need to have this one.After the Deep Roads Expedition, Carver and his sister get a chance to talk semi-calmly about why he joined the Templars. Carver is prickly, Hawke is awkward, but they mostly work it out.





	The Necessary Thing

When Hawke went to enter the bedroom she and Carver had shared, after that awful conversation with their mother, she didn’t mean to slam the door open. She still did, so hard that it ricocheted off the wall and nearly slammed shut again in her face. The mistake didn’t surprise her. She’d always had a tendency to handle things too roughly. 

Carver looked up. He was sitting on the bed, elbows propped on his thighs and hands flexing aimlessly in the space between his knees. Hawke knew that gesture; Since they were teenagers, Carver had made it whenever he wished whatever problem they were facing was something he could fight. It so often wasn’t. 

Hawke stood awkwardly in the doorway, feeling too big and clumsy for the situation, like the bedroom’s walls were something she might break. As was so common for her at difficult moments, words did not come easily. All she managed in the end was: “So. The Templars.”

“Don’t you lecture me too. Mother hasn’t stopped since I gave her the news.” His voice was weary.

Hawke finally stepped through the doorway without answering, and crossed the room in a few quiet strides. The ancient bedsprings whined as she sat down beside her brother. “Why?” She asked, hoping to Andraste or whoever else was listening that he wouldn’t pretend not to know what she meant just to be difficult.

He didn’t. “I knew you wouldn’t like it— you or mother. But you must understand why this is necessary, even if she never will.”

“So tell me then!” She snapped. “I’m hearing you out. Talk.”

He snorted. “I didn’t miss you speaking to me like that, while you were off playing adventurer.” _Although I did miss you_ went unspoken, but Hawke chose to believe it was there. Carver sighed. “I know you’re good at your job, sister, but it was still the Deep Roads. We had no way of knowing if you would come back…”

She understood. “The money. You needed to be sure….”

“Say what you will about the templars, they pay a good salary even to fresh recruits. And it’s not like I know how to do anything but swing a sword around, anyway.” His voice rose, although Hawke could tell he was still trying to keep it down enough that Leandra, still waiting in the next room for Hawke to ‘talk some sense into him’ wouldn’t hear. “You don’t know what it’s like! You made connections so _easily_ in Kirkwall, and I’m just supposed to hang onto your coattails. Well, that only works when you’re around, sweet sister! When you left, mother and I still needed to eat, and the money wasn’t going to last forever. If you hadn’t come back, we’d have needed my stipend.”

“Came back.” She muttered. “I’m right here.”

“Yes. I see that. But,” he shook his head, “this family can’t just depend entirely on you, anyway. I know you think it’s your job to—“

“It is!”

“Fine! You can have your heroics, and I’ll just sit here like a damsel in distress while—“

“Not arguing with you Carver, I never was.” She raised her voice so it covered his, and he fell warily silent. “Hardly said fucking _anything._ Just asked why.”

“And I told you. But I suppose my explanation wasn’t good enough!”

“No, I, I mean—“ she cut herself off, struggling to explain that she _got it now._ Knowing the familiar shape of her silence, Carver waited with a surprising amount of patience while she spent half a minute or so counting breaths, until she was sure she had something to say that would make sense.

At last, she assembled a few careful sentences. “You had mother to take care of. You did what you had to. For the family.” _For the family,_ the unofficial motto of the Hawke children. Everything for the family. That, at least, was still common ground. “I get it, alright? I fucking hate it, I just. I get it now. Alright?”

“Oh.” He said, more quietly. “Alright.” A pause, and then he was talking again. She got the sense he’d spent the last few days marshaling arguments to use against her, and now didn’t want them to go to waste. “Look, it’s not as though the templars would have been my first choice. But we burned a few bridges when we stopped working for Meeran, and the city guard won’t let me in because of whatever stupid reason Aveline came up with, and every other decent job in Kirkwall has already been taken by some desperate Fereldan—“ he shrugged. “I did what I had to.”

She slung an arm around his shoulder rubbing his arm through his sleeve. “Yeah. I know, little brother.”

A brief silence, but a little less strained now. 

“About mother.” She began.

He glanced over at her. 

“She’s scared. She’s trying.”

He snorted. “She always tries. But you know she still thinks the Amell name carries more weight than it does, after Gamlen pissed it all away, and I don’t think she understands that we could be in trouble— for more than you being an apostate. I know she doesn’t mean half of what she says when she gets upset…..”

“Yeah.” Hawke said more quietly. “Well. You’ll be in the barracks anyway, you won’t have to listen to her.”

“It’s not just about whether I have to hear her!”

“I know.” 

“Hey, sister?” She looked at him. “I really do promise not to turn you in. If you’re nice to me.”

It was more dark than funny, but she laughed anyway, knowing the lame joke was his way of hitting hard at their shared fear of the situation, like pouring alcohol over a cut to clean it. And it worked. She was starting to think she could live with a Templar brother, if she had to. 

——

__

_Carver—_

_I don’t see why you had to write me a letter when we still live in the same damn city, but alright then. Glad all’s well with you. Mother and I are fine. She’s still angry, but she’ll get over it. You know she loves you, and I think she knows why you joined the Order even if she doesn’t want to think about it too hard. Anyway, she’ll have moved on pretty soon, so you shouldn’t worry._

_Varric just told me to give you his best— I’m writing this at the Hanged Man while we wait for the others to arrive. I wish you were here. No one else here knows Fereldan drinking songs._

_Love you, little brother. Don’t let the other recruits give you shit, and come visit when you think it’s safe._

_Yours,  
~~Hawke~~ Marian _

__

**Author's Note:**

> My first work in this fandom, and my knowledge of canon is a little slapdash, so I apologize for any weird mistakes. 
> 
> I do like to picture Carver and Hawke sharing a bedroom though. “Dog has just as much of a right to be in here as—“ “No, he really doesn’t, Marian!”


End file.
